I was contacted by someone I did not sell a bag to, asking me where the bag was, as she said she sent payment via western union last week. First, she did not win the bag in question (it didn't reach reserve), and second, I don't accept western union. It sounds like she has been the victim of a fake second chance offer scammer. Has this ever happened to you before? Is my seller status in any danger, even though I had nothing to do with her falling for this scam? This has me worried. I've never sent anything by wire transfer so I don't know what information she would have on the scammer. Any info you can share with me would be greatly appreciated.
Sellers, has this happened to you before?
- Thread starter Cundle
- Start date
First things first: ASK her if she received a second chance offer. Was she one of the original bidders on the bag for the real auction?
To me it sounds like she got scammed. It's easy to prove you never SENT a second chance offer, so I just think if you keep your ducks in row, you won't be in any serious danger of losing any selling privilege.
This happened to a friend of mine, only she was the bidder not the seller. She had gotten a second chance offer on an item that she was outbid on and luckily she sent the seller a question about shipping after she had received the second chance offer...the seller responded back to her that she was not sure what was going on, but she had not sent any second chance offer to anyone!
if this came through an ebay message -- don't click any links in the email. it may be a hacker trying to get into your account. they write some bogus thing that gets you worried, but if you click on it, they gain access to your account. forward the message the username of that person to ebay. if you did click on something in the message, change all of your passwords immediately!
^Yeah I agree, that's what it sounds like it is.
I got one just today from "Paypal" giving me a receipt for $175 for some living trust. I hovered the cursor over the link and it displayed the web page address of some random site. It's a phishing email, you can report it to [email protected].
I got one just today from "Paypal" giving me a receipt for $175 for some living trust. I hovered the cursor over the link and it displayed the web page address of some random site. It's a phishing email, you can report it to [email protected].
Definitely report it, I have never sold anything on eBay only purchased and I have received emails like yours (they even got quite threatening) so I reported it as SPAM to eBay.
I am sorry that this has happened. There are so many scams going on out there, l would do like the others have said and forward to eBay. However, they will not be allowed to leave any kind of feedback if they were not the winning bidder, so your feedback will not be affected!!!
Thanks for your help. I hope it is just a phishing email. I didn't click on any links in it. I opened up my own ebay page and the message was in the "my messages" section seemingly from the person who didn't win the auction (she was the highest bidder but it didn't meet reserve). I'm just going to ignore it and any other emails I get about this and hopefully it will go away. Keeping my fingers crossed!:s
it sounds like the bidder got a scam second chance offer. check if she was a bidder on your auction, if so i'm afraid she got scammed. this almost happened to me when i was new to ebay and it was a really big ticket item($2,000). only thing that saved me was that i deleted the second chance email the scammers sent me by mistake and decided to contact the seller directly through ebay to find out where i should send payment to and then the seller told me she did not know what i was talking about. at the time it really pissed me off because i thought the seller was playing games with me and i really wanted the bag(i know i'm a little slow), i even threatened to report her to ebay. it took me a couple of days to realize what really happened.
Just a small thought if the message came through eBay she may well think that she has won your auction or that you were prepared to let her have the item without it hitting the reserve. How can she have paid via Western Union - she would have needed some sort of address to send it to. I would now message her back via eBay and advise her that you havent offered her the item and certainly don't take Western Union as a payment. She will still not be able to leave you any negative feedback but it now sounds as though she is possibly the one being scammed!!!
ITA, she needs to be notified of what has happened to her immediately! She'll end up thanking you in the end, once she realizes what has happened, but you should really give her a heads up. I get those emails every once and awhile, (sometimes repeatly) and simply forward them to [email protected].
Hi again. I did send her a message through Ebay yesterday letting her know I didn't sell the bag to her and that she should contact Ebay directly with any information i.e. email addresses, where and who she sent the western union to etc. So far I haven't received any further responses so I'm thinking its either a new scam (maybe she thought I would send her the bag anyway!) or that (unfortunately for her) she got scammed by a fake second chance offer. I just hope that if she got scammed that my listings aren't affected if Ebay has to do some sort of investigation. If any of you have had something like this happen to them before, I'd really appreciate a heads up on what (if anything) Ebay does about it. I know my feedback is going to be unaffected but I would hate to be suspended from Ebay because a scammer got lucky with a bidder on my auction. Thanks again.
Cundle - I am so sorry that this is happening - this is not your fault nor your responsibility. Ebay will know that you were not obligated to sell this as it didn't hit the reserve price - therefore there was no sale, if there was you would be charged final value fees and you can check that in your sellers account. Buyers are warned all the time about using Western Union!!! At least you have had the decency to contact her and advise what is going on - you should not get suspended, you have done nothing wrong. The problem is the buyers if he or she did pay a scammer with Western Union.